Amanda and I went to see Borat at the cinema last night. Usually at this point I'd be tempted to write a review of the film, going into depth about its shortcomings and grand achievements, but to be quite honest I'm at a loss to make any new or original points. More than just about any other film in recent memory, this has received so much Internet hype and so many articles and reviews that finding a stance that hasn't already been well-argued over and well covered is nigh on impossible.

What I will say is that the film is probably the funniest comedy of 2006. Not "the funniest movie ever!!!" or "so hilarious your veins will combust!" but certainly a very amusing and surprisingly well constructed film. I was expecting a basic, badly thought through plot to be used as a peg to hang various Borat mishaps on, but in actual fact the entire movie manages to combine an interesting storyline along with real-life Borat skits almost seamlessly. There's nothing random or scattershot about any of it, and the whole product manages to tell a slightly bizarre story as well as satirise the attitudes of certain strands of American society.

My one criticism of it would be that it's possibly a bit too gentle, especially in comparison with the Borat sketches on the Ali G show. Many of those were actually quite savage in the attitudes they exposed, encouraging right wing American politicians to utter racist remarks, causing Cambridge professors to announce that they believed all women were inferior, and even showing that you could cause a Californian new age hippy to lose his temper in a most uncharitable fashion. In the film there are odd fireworks, but nothing fantastically productive. People swear, threaten and run away from Borat, but nobody is really overly encouraged by his exhortations for them to be racist with him, and the most he can really muster up is some casual homophobia at a rodeo (hands up who wouldn't have suspected that). That particular scene is indeed also the most revealing, as he also rants about how "Bush's War Of Terror" is an admirable thing, and how every man, woman and child should be killed in Iraq to some very heartfelt cheers from the rodeo crowd. Beyond that, there's little fresh meat. He manages to highlight the slightly unnerving behaviour of some Christian fundamentalists, but he doesn't manage to turn over any new stones, and in any case they even come across as being quite likeable at one point, laughing as they do at one of his more non-offensive jokes. I have to wonder if the film was smoothed over slightly for more commercial consumption, or if perhaps the material gained from the trip was just less savage on this occasion.

Beyond that, I have little new to add, I'm afraid. Though if you want any sort of extreme proclamation about the wonderous nature of the flick, I suppose I could add that Amanda said she nearly p*ssed herself during the nude wrestling scene, so that would end up being your poster quote, I assume. The nude wrestling scene was odd, so far as I'm concerned, in that I noticed that most of the men in the cinema found it moderately funny, chuckling quite openly, but the women were squealing and howling with laughter. There's something about naked men wrestling and fighting that women seem to find screechingly funny. Researchers have even found that the main difference between women attending male strip shows and men attending female ones is that the women laugh openly, whereas the men are rather more intensely focussed on the goings-on. I could read more into this, but I won't for now, for fear that I end up keeping my clothes on for the rest of eternity if I think too hard about it.

Talking of male-female relations, I managed to overhear a conversation on the train the other day that made me incredibly thankful that I'm in a long-term relationship. I realise, of course, that this is likely to be interpreted as a smug comment to all you single people out there, and I'd like to make it clear that's not what I mean. Being single is fine if you've made up your mind that's the state you're happiest in, and you're not actively on the prowl looking for would-be mating partners. If, on the other hand, you're in your late twenties or early thirties and are doing this completely ridiculous and actually rather absurd practice called "dating" by some, or being set up by friends, I have to say it's about as romantic as sexually exciting as licking a battery in my experience. Not that I've licked a battery before - I'm not the village idiot being goaded on by his local bullies - but you take my point all the same.

For the record, the conversation ran thusly:

WOMAN #1: "Oh... I just... I just don't know what to do. I mean he's very nice and everything..."
WOMAN #2: "Mmmm, I know".
WOMAN #1: "And we've got so much in common. We really have."
WOMAN #2: "Well yes, I thought that".
WOMAN #1: "It's just... he seems wrong. Really wrong. You know? And I don't know if I can see him as being more than a friend".
WOMAN #2: "So what's the problem, then?"
WOMAN #1: "It's just... we were talking and alarm bells were ringing. It's like... he said at one point that he was out with this woman, and he wanted to go into one bar she wanted to go the other. And he said to me that in the end he went along with her decision, but in retrospect felt that she'd almost bullied him into it."
(pause).
WOMAN #1: "That's not good, is it? I mean, that suggests he's a bit weak, really. I don't want that. I don't want a man who can be bullied."
WOMAN #2: "No."
WOMAN #1: "But now he's texted me saying he wants to see me again, and I don't know what to say. My friend set all this up. She'll be upset if I don't reply".
WOMAN #2: "Well, you should at least reply".
WOMAN #1: "I know. It's really rude not to, isn't it?"
WOMAN #2: "Mmmmm".
WOMAN #1: "But what do I say? I just don't know what to say!"
WOMAN #2: "Well look, you get on well, you like him, you clearly think he could be a friend, just go out for another drink and see where it goes..."
WOMAN #1: "I know, but what if he thinks... Oh, I just don't know, this is so haaaard!"

Now, I have one obvious observation on the above conversation which, for the record, took place between two women who looked as if they were in their early thirties. The first is that if I'd had the misfortune to go out for a drink with such a wishy-washy, whiny, terminally adolescent woman, I don't think there would have been a follow-up text, irrespective of how attracted I may or may not have felt to her. But that's just me. I'm easily irritated by such things.

The main thing that struck me about it, though, was how the whole affair which had obviously been a fairly pleasant evening out was being reduced to stressful strategic warfare. I can remember for myself how unpleasurable a lot of this stuff was. In your teens and early twenties, everything seemed so straightforward. You had a relatively large pool of friends, some of whom had girlfriends, some of whom had single female friends. You got to know them. You had a drunken kiss. You saw them again. And suddenly, without warning or without any sort of awareness that the thing had been announced or you knowing quite how it happened, you were a couple. This might sound supremely unromantic and immature to most people, but for me at least it's preferable to the scenario which starts occurring in your late twenties, which is:

A friend sets you up/ you meet someone interesting at a party or event you ask out for a drink. You go out together. You sit and talk, and attempt to get to know one another under the most ridiculously forced circumstances. Certain probing questions are asked of you to gauge your suitability. Jokes or subtle, meaningless comments have far too much read into them, and are reacted to disproportionately (I remember one such "date" where a woman barked at me "You hate CHILDREN DON'T YOU?!" after I complained about the noise some local kids were making). People look at you in a paranoid way, searching for the psychological problems that the last idiot they were with for three years had. You exit the entire thing feeling as if you've just sat a job interview, with the only added bonus of there being alcohol there (which you sorely needed) and the possibility of a second chance if you liked the other person a great deal, which often you didn't as a result of their true personality not really coming through behind their hang-ups.

I do not understand why people would rather make the beginnings of any relationship as torturous and suspicious as possible, no matter how pleasurable the company or how much in common they have with the person they're drinking with. It's just insane. Go with the flow, for God's sake. All of you. Either you both decide you want it, or neither of you wants it, or only one of you does, or you both do but one decides before the other, and it's only in the latter cases that the problems begin. And those of you who haven't begun this ridiculous charade yet, setting up glamourised job interviews for the role of being someone's partner in a West End bar, please for God's sake don't start.

And for the curious, the correct answers (in my opinion) to Woman #1's problems are:

a/ Text him back saying you'd quite like to meet up for another drink, but are busy for the next week - perhaps you could get back to him on it? Then wait, and if you decide you're still curious, contact him again the following week. Or wait and see if he contacts you, which might tell you something about his strength of character, whatever you wish to read into his response or lack of it. He's in his thirties, he's a big boy now, and I'm sure he's been round the block enough times not to be totally crushed on the basis of one night out. If you're worried about what your friend might think, then give him your honest opinion over a second drink. You needn't tell him outright, but he'll usually be able to tell by your responses. Once again, he's old enough and wise enough, he's not a lovesick teenage boy, etc. etc. etc.

b/ Accept the fact that whatever you have in common, you're just not sexually attracted to him. It happens. Either keep him as a friend, or knock it on the head nicely. And for all you know, he might not even be that sure about you, and the second drink might just be helping him to make his mind up as well. Don't lose sight of that fact, eh?
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